Edit: By prefer, I mean having the choice and choosing manual, obviously. Choosing manual because it is cheaper does not count.
Until recently, manuals were also more efficient than automatics and had more gears. That was a big factor for performance cars and places with high fuel prices, but is no longer true. Now, automatics are more efficient and usually have more gears, so people who want manuals on new cars just want the additional control or engagement.
With a manual tranny, manual brakes, manual steering, and manual suspension you feel connected to the car and the road, and it's just a joy. It's even more fun when you learn to double clutch the downshift, and work on doing a perfect downshift and entry into the turn.
With practice, you can drive a stick smoother than an auto, though most never bother.
The times I prefer an automatic are in stop-go traffic, and starting out uphill. I'd also prefer an automatic in a luxury car or SUV. But for a muscle car or sports car, stick all the way!
You can't win a drag race with a stick, racing auto trans will always shift faster. But there's no skill in the latter, and so it's no fun.
I recently took up dirt bike riding. I was repeatedly offered an electric bike, which didn't need shifting. Phooey. I wanted the gas bike with the manual shifter. And I was right, managing the engine and gear adds much fun.
I love it, fuel efficiency is on par with manual. There are things that I don’t like, specifically: - Driving in traffic: If I’m inching forward, transmission suffer because it does continuously half-clutch. Much more control with a manual. - Mountain driving: I usually set it again to manual to be able to brake with the engine when going up and meeting a curve. Interestingly, it does fine going downhill. - tricky terrain: it changes wildly depending on the traction you are encountering, so manual mode helps keeping a constant rhythm and speed when traction is not optimal (snow, mud, etc)
I have to admit though that the automatic is way faster than me at changing gears, which helps keeping a constant acceleration and avoid head bobbing.
That's because a DSG gearbox has two clutches. It is basically a traditional gearbox with one clutch connected to the odd gears and one to the even gears. The system selects the next gear according to the revs of the engine and does all the physical shifting in advance. The actual gear change is then only disengaging one clutch while engaging the other one. You can overlap this so the engine continously delivers torque to the wheels. Thus, no head bobbing.
An EV doesn't have a transmission in the conventional sense (1). It's just a final drive from the motor to the differential (which you'd have in any conventional ICE gearbox anyway). The motor is always connected, and can drive from zero speed to maximum in the same gear. It's a totally difference experience to an 'automatic' ICE car as there are no shifts. It's like a part of the car is just no longer there - and for good reason as electric motors can provide torque over a much wider range of speeds than an ICE engine can.
The gearbox in an ICE car is only there to cover for the inadequacy of ICE engines. It's missing from EVs because it's not needed.
Life-long petrolhead here (driven as an amateur in the WRC for reference). Bought my first EV a few years ago, and never going back. It makes zero sense for most people to have an ICE car now. If you've not driven one, reserve judgement about the transmission as most people I know who've driven mine have found it a revelation.
(1) with the exception of the Porsche Taycan AFAIK.
Not having to deal with gear shifting is a huge benefit for me. It takes out one non-trivial element from the whole driving experience and lets me focus more on all the other things you need to do while driving. It’s also more relaxing, especially combined with adaptive cruise control. And I never worry I will mess up the when starting from a full stop and have to restart the car. Especially when starting from an uphill.
From what you described you’re the type of person that likes to have full control over the car and how it behaves, and that’s totally fine. But many of us don’t, we just care to get from point A to B with as little friction as possible. Sure, it’s more expensive to get and maintain, but that’s a price I’m fully willing to pay.
That sounds suspect. In the past 20 years I’ve found it makes far less errors than when I drive manual transmission over the same time. The set points just differ.
The curve for engine breaking is also not absent, just different I regularly release the accelerator in an automatic transmission, and it will slow down to a stop
I used to think like that, but driving a manual tranny in one of the most congested cities in the world, with bad hip joints (the left one the worst) at the age of 50, it takes it's toll.
So I bought a Chinese EV a couple of months ago and couldn't be happier. No more clutching a thousand times a day was a huge QOL improvement.
Even if I go back to ICE, it would be an automatic. I don't drive for fun anymore, I just want to get to where I'm going with the least ammount of effort possible.
It is automatic
I have better uses for my time and attention than matching rpms and flicking a lever, especially in stop and go traffic
> Cars with manual transmission can be towed
Automatic cars can be towed, just read the manual (for reference: https://mechanics.stackexchange.com/questions/22275/can-a-ca... )
Damages that would give a manual gearbox 'personality', might make the automatic refuse to engage gear at all.
The accelerator padel in practice also becomes a shift down gear button. So you need to keep your feet at a more specific position of the pedal.
When towing trailers the automatic gear selection is usually bad.
You can't start the engine by rolling it and release the clutch when low on batteries or the starter motor is somewhat broken. I would say this is the biggest drawback of automatics.
On the other hand, automatics are nice in queues.
Most EVs are single speed transmission due to the wide range torque curve, so manual vs auto is kind of a moot point for all but very high performance vehicles anyway... Which is why this honda thing is a total gimmick, i'd happily give up manual gearbox when there is no performance and efficiency difference.
When I find myself thinking like that I try to come up with generous analogies to try and position myself in a similar mindset. With manual transmission the advantage seems to be fine grained control over the engine at the cost of more complexity and additional work. This fine grained control may be imperceptible or totally unnecessary for some people. However, I run Linux for similar reasons and enjoy tinkering with it. I also tend to prefer tools that target power users at the cost of complexity. So, even if I'm not a gearhead myself, I can easily understand the preference for manual transmission by others.
For several people this is an important decision.
So some people don't "prefer" manual. It just made sense at the time they bought the car.
I hate it compared to automatic. Automatic is so much more comfortable (in my Toyota Hybrid RAV4 at least), driving in yraffic us much easier etc.
I will never buy a manual car again.
Me after I accidentally ended up buying an automatic car for the first time.
Having said that, manuals are harder and I have noticed people are less willing to give up something that took time and effort to learn, so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt.
It's like running Linux. At some point it's just another OS, so what difference does it make? And for some, it doesn't make a difference. For others, having more control, and being able to dig into the guts of a desktop Linux system and replace whatever you want let's them feel more connected to the computer, making it less of a mysterious box that operates on magic and black smoke, and more of a predictable machine.
I almost never know what an auto will do if I put my foot to the floor. And often just 50% it interprets as you wanting to floor it and shifts down 2 gears which is often an overreaction given the car's torque and power.
I dislike the gamble at roundabouts too. They're everywhere in the UK and they're busy - you often pull out in front of cars where there is a gap and you need to know your car will do exactly what you need it to do.
Also start-stop is trickier to control in an auto and it's linked to how hard you brake rather than the clutch pedal (it's getting harder to disable start-stop in cars these days). I never want the engine to turn off at the entry to a roundabout but if you brake too hard, it will
That said if I am regularly doing 100s of miles on motorways I absolutely love an auto
To me it's more like "running your own-compiled GNU Hurd Kernel", probably on your own-assembled kit :D
Linux has very "tangible" use cases, far beyond wanting the machine "be an extension of yourself". No?
What are some hobbies you enjoy?
Today, my own car has a manual transmission, which I prefer for the added control. It lets me use different levels of engine braking on downhill stretches (very useful depending on where you live) and manage my speed more precisely in heavy traffic.
For accelerating, I just use the go-pedal (which I still call the "gas pedal"). It gives me precise gentle control for normal driving around town, especially with passengers, or immediate zoom-zoom when I need it in a traffic situation or just for fun. I don't have to think about gears or any of that.
For slowing down, there two paddles on the steering wheel to select the regen level, just like the paddle shifters on some gas cars. A higher regen level is like a lower gear that gives you more engine braking.
Regen level 0 is like coasting. Level 1 is like being in "drive" with an automatic transmission. 2 and 3 are like downshifting further. There is also "auto-regen" and "i-pedal". I tried them all and found level 2 is my sweet spot.
If I'm going downhill and need to slow down even more, I can either go to level 3 or just use the brake pedal. If I do use the brake pedal, I won't be engaging the friction brakes. It just tells the car to pump energy back into the battery, unless I really mash down for an emergency stop.
In a car I learned manual first and it was a mission, on a bike I learned automatic first and switched to manual from that, and it was much easier.
Fun facts, the new high performance Toyota GR Corolla has a new automatic gear that's proven faster than the manual version.
I really hope similar things happening for programming languages with GC since D language got a lot of flak by making GC as the default.
To rephrase your perplexity, how some people prefer manual memory management is probably one of the mysteries I'll take to grave with myself.
It’s like cooking your own meal versus going to a restaurant. I enjoy cooking a lot.
Auto should be used for all the other cars (including performance cars, where you want your mind focused on stuff other than shifting; true sequential is king there, though).
I've driven manual cars but never owned one. Other than transmission fluid changes (rare), though, I've never had to fix an auto transmission. They're pretty reliable. My current one is at about 260k km, 24 years old (previous owner burned out engine and transmission at ~100k km on car by not using towing mode to tow, so car has more on it than that).
And of course for a lot of driving (highways) theres very little shifting anyway.
This is obviously less relevant in America where you can still buy fast cars without being murdered by taxes.